Tag Archives: virgil wolfe

Wordsmith Virgil Wolfe, like many of us, is forced to work a day job to make the ends meet. The thing about Virgil, however, is that his brain never stops working, and the bars will come regardless of where he may be at any given time. In an effort to serve this urge and be productive while dedicating his time to someone else, Virgil Wolfe has created the Lunch Time Bust Rhymes series, where he pulls a beat from one of his many collaborators, writes to it during his lunch break, and then records a take for storage and sharing on his YouTube channel. The video above features a banger from producer (and the homie) kal.kal, with other videos containing production from TrueHoustonEmcee, Run C.T. and Heavo. These brief moments provide us with a bit of insight in Virgil‘s process, both creatively and on a more personal level. I look forward to not only seeing more installments, but seeing if some of these snippets turn into full fledged songs.

A month or so ago, Virgil Wolfe debuted a new single (a collaboration with producer Big Lo) titled Lovely To Look At, and it made an impression on me. It made such an impression, in fact, that I concluded my blog entry on the song by suggesting a remix with myself on it wouldn’t be a bad idea. Cut to the present time, and what seemed at first like a wild request has become a stark reality. Lovely To Look At still jams, but now there’s an extra bit of lyrical craftsmanship from yours truly tagged on at the end, and the possibility of more collaborations in the future. Check out the new version of the track, share it around, and if you really dig it, give it a like and a comment!

Virgil Wolfe and Big Lo have been on a songwriting tear recently, so a new track from that neck of the woods is no surprise. What makes It’s Just Distance so special is that it marks the first collaboration between Virgil Wolfe and Daroundhero in nearly a decade. The energy between these two on the track is kinetic, and with Big Lo‘s off-kilter jazz-influenced beat as the driving force, the two emcees trade bars and hook duty as good as the cats from Project Blowed used to get down. Tracks like these remind me of my transition from fan to artist in the early to mid-1990’s, strictly because tracks like these, tracks with so much love emanating from them, being performed by people in very similar situations to myself, let me know that the only hurdle to creative expression was a personal one. Hopefully this collaboration between these old friends is not a one-off, and we don’t have to wait another eight years for a follow-up track. Definitely check this one out, share it around, and leave it a like and/or comment.

For most artists and creatives, the last thing that you want to do is limit yourself in terms of expression. As therapeutic as creating art and music can be, it is infinitely more rewarding when you allow yourself to expand beyond the limits imposed on you by others (or yourself). Enter Savannah, Georgia-based cunabear, an artist who clearly understands and adheres to the practice of not limiting himself in terms of creative expression. Yawning Towards Heaven!!!!, his latest release (produced by sp00ks), wonderfully shifts between abstract instrumentals, experimental boom-bap hip-hop, spoken word over sparse instrumentation, and a handful of solid posse cuts featuring labelmates such as SB the Moor, BigStupidIdiot, Gomec, the homie Virgil Wolfe, Creative Space Cadet, MugWampers and four_circles. Most everything I’ve heard from BearTooth Collective has been good, but Yawning Towards Heaven!!!! plays very much like a deeply felt personal statement. Props to cunabear for putting out a true gem for heads to take in.

Virgil Wolfe recently dropped a new track, a collaboration with producer Big Lo titled Lovely To Look At. The beat is wonderfully off-kilter and lo-fi, with an eerie vocal sample and purposeful recording/aging distortion integrated into the track. It’s a suitable soundscape for some of Wolfe‘s more cryptic lyrical fare. His verse and delivery put me in the mindset of a Labyrinth-like situation, where I must solve the riddles Virgil Wolfe presents me before I am able to progress further. My only real frustration with the song is that it is simply a single verse… an extended break and a second verse would have made this one pure gold. Maybe a remix featuring Chief and TheDoomsdayDevice on a guest verse could solve that? Regardless, here’s to Virgil Wolfe for continuing to put out both quantity and quality when it comes to tunage.

The influence that television has had on the last few generations is undeniable. It has shaped our cultural context and standard frame of reference in ways that we may never return from, which isn’t inherently a bad thing. Take, for example, the collective efforts of MC Virgil Wolfe and producer Strcolctr. The duo recently took their love of TV from their childhood, took a direct look at how it has effected them emotional and rationally, and have poured those thoughts into the short but powerful Unlimited TV Dinners, with whip-smart ruminations on ideas like investing your time in meaningless ventures, cultural identity and more. Don’t let the lighthearted veneer fool you, there’s some heavy lifting being done on this project. If Unlimited TV Dinners Deluxe dropped at some point in the future, I wouldn’t be mad at that one bit.

Virgil Wolfe proves time and time again that he is not content with resting on his laurels. Almost exactly half a year after releasing the insightful and thought-provoking Calamity produced collaboration Before The World Wakes Up, Wolfe is already talking up his next release, Unlimited TV Dinners. The project, slated for a June 30th release, is an EP length collaboration with producer Strcolctr, and if the lead single Filler Episode is any indication of what’s to come, it sounds like we’re going to get our insight via clever analogies and imagery this go-round. I’m not used to hearing Wolfe on the type of production that is Filler Episode, with it’s laid back nature and extremely heavy swing, but I gotta say that I dig what he’s laid out. Here’s to hoping that Unlimited TV Dinners is another step in the right direction.